Sanjay Raut, a roadside ‘shayar’ who considered himself a political strategist

Shiv Sena has been sent to a ditch from which not many are confident of its return. In a massive development, BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis has been sworn in as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra with the support of NCP’s Ajit Pawar. Here on, the Shiv Sena, which quit the alliance with thie BJP, made its party member Arvind Sawant resign from the Modi cabinet, and tried to forge an alliance with the Congress and NCP, is left bankrupt in terms of power as well as ideology. This has happened under the tutelage of Sanjay Raut, a man who gravely overestimated himself while locking horns with Amit Shah.

From 2014 to 2019, the Shiv Sena, many have commented, has played the role of an opposition party rather than that of a participatory member of the NDA. While genuine dissent within an alliance is acceptable, the Shiv Sena, to be perceived as a strong and superior party, has left no chance of deriding the BJP, PM Modi and Amit Shah.

The Shiv Sena’s hatred for the BJP is rather deep-seated. Seeing the unprecedented rise of an invincible BJP machinery in Maharashtra, Sena grew an inferiority complex, and started flexing its muscles, only to its detriment.

The single reason behind the Shiv Sena’s irreversible downfall has been Sanjay Raut, a political analyst in his mind. The second factor has been Uddhav Thackeray’s lack of political understanding. What else can be said of a man who let Sanjay Raut run a party which was supposed to carry forward the legacy of Balasaheb Thackeray?

Sanjay Raut, at best, is a good writer. To even think of him to be capable of drawing the political strategies of a political party would be an infantile assertion. Raut has been slowly crafting a divergence of the Shiv Sena from its core ideology, to the point of no return. Shiv Sena’s political career was ruined the day it expressed its willingness to ally with the NCP and Congress. Raut played a pivotal role in the same.

Sanjay Raut is a known hater of Amit Shah. In order to establish himself as the master strategist of Indian politics, he has done nothing but proved his incapacity to take simple and wise political decisions. Raut is Uddhav Thackeray’s most trusted aid, apart from being the Executive Editor of Sena’s mouthpiece, Saamana. This speaks a lot about the ambitious Uddhav Thackeray, who allowed himself and the Shiv Sena to be played with at the hands of a rogue man who was concerned only about his political career.

Sanjay Raut had even praised Congress scion Rahul Gandhi and deemed him capable of running the nation adding that the Modi wave is losing its sheen. Along with the qualities of Amar Singh or Sharad Yadav, Raut has even now imbibed the qualities of Digvijay Singh, the political mentor of Rahul Gandhi.

Sanjay Raut, additionally, has been insinuating conspiracy theories about the BJP. After Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s demise, Sanjay Raut made a despicable comment that the announcement was made on 16th August to facilitate smooth Independence Day celebrations across the country. The man, as evident from this comment, is rabidly toxic and incapable of being in public life.

Raut has led the Shiv Sena astray from its core ideology. This is a culmination of his arrogance and Uddhav Thackery’s ambitions to bag the Chief Ministerial post for the Thackeray family in Maharashtra. Sanjay Raut gravely overestimated his abilities and duped Uddhav Thackeray into risking all of Shiv Sena’s political capital by ditching the BJP, and subsequently losing out spectacularly.

In an attempt to show Shiv Sena as a party unaffected by the noise surrounding their alliance with the NCP and Congress, Sanjay Raut heralded the ‘Shayari’ revolution in the party. Instead of commenting on burning issues, Raut tried to act smart and display to the public his indifference towards such issues. 

These ‘shers’ served no significant purpose whatsoever, except for making a fool out of the man. How Sanjay Raut was allowed to dilute a glorious ideology and legacy is a case-study for future politicians. Although he has brought the Shiv Sena to a juncture of political exhaustion, future politicians can learn from the mistakes of Uddhav Thackeray, and realise that anyone who claims to be a master political strategist is actually a short-sighted political opportunist.